have discovered valuable cousins before this. As it is, her efforts have hitherto been fruitless, and I leave you to imagine her joy when she suddenly sees the possibility of success. A new Lamb of any description is always exhilarating, but a Lilian Leslie Lamb exceeds her fondest hopes.
"You will perhaps be interested to know what manner of people we are. I am happy in being able to assure you that we are extremely respectable, crime and abject poverty being alike unknown among us. The conventional black sheep has appeared occasionally within our fold and has been prayed over or disowned according to the temper of his immediate victims. As a family we run to the ministry, though one judge, a generation back, and a plucky young colonel, who waskilled in the war of the Rebellion, form a picturesque variation. A less picturesque variation occurred in the person of my own father, who went into copper. As he spent most of his time in the West, and died when I was a child, I never saw much of him. Indeed I have no near relatives besides my aunt, and I am free to confess that I should value a new cousin highly. I ought to add, in view of your talents, that neither my aunt nor I boasts a shadow of one. In fact, we are very commonplace sort of people. After this admission willPage:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/33
